Thursday 25 April 2013

A terrible loss

The dry season had come and gone. The snails survived. The ants and earthworms didn't do much harm to the snails but some thing worse than all these, attacked the snails. The snails laid eggs, I had thousands of snail eggs all over the snail house. The eggs hatched and their babies were everywhere. It looked like I  would have millions of snails very soon but then the real enemies of the snail attacked.

Very tiny insects were every where in the snail pen. These insects where so very tiny that you really have to look closely to see them. Initially I thought they were normal but when I noticed that the newly hatched snails could barely survive, then I knew that the situation was critical. I partitioned the snail house but it didn't work. They were just every where. All the snails whether big or small  had this tiny monsters all over them.  I wouldn't save them, the babies were the most hit. The babies died in thousands just as they hatched. Any baby shell you picked up was empty eaten up by the tiny monsters. The monsters occupied every empty shell. I felt sad and discouraged.  I did everything within my power to save them but couldn't.

These tiny insects I noticed were easily blown away by air and they were so many of them in the soil on which the snails live. So I removed and washed the big snails put them into another snail pen. The soil with the snail eggs in it and the newly hatched snails I threw into the bush. I left the snail house in the sun for about 3 days then treated it with insecticide.

So I lost all the eggs and the babies. If  they survive in the bush then I would probably have them back